Wolf Pack of Two
by Keuraki-SoraXRiku
Summary: When your dreams kill your best friend and then tell you to leave, it is in your best interests to leave. But what if you don't?


**A/N: **So. I made some changes, but overall it's not very different and therefore anyone who's read this chapter before has no need to re-read it.

I'm really enjoying this one =D

**Warnings: **boyxboy love, gore, whimsical horror, White Land Beings. I must make it clear that Sora and Riku are NOT wolves, as many have asked me, nor are any other characters. The "wolves" terminology is exactly that; terminology.

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Sora, Riku, or any other Kingdom Hearts characters that i use in this fic, nor do i own Kingdom Hearts in general. Thank you for rubbing that in.

Enjoy ~

* * *

******Chapter 1: Time for Two Wolves**

There was light, there was dark, and there was Riku. He was neither, nor was he both, nor was he none. He was his own, a different definition from the groups society had named, different from the sun or the moon or the reflection of each in the water. He was the differential. He was Riku. He was his. Like a dream, he was his. Like a universe, he was his. Like a feeling, he was his. And Sora loved him.

Just like Riku, the sky in this world was its own. Sora had never been to a world with its own sky. The sky was always one whole to be shared. It was always the link between the worlds. But somewhere in the link, this little world was left behind, and it had to create its own sky, and its own beings, and its own link between every other world. Because no world deserved to be alone.

This sky was not a sky, just like Riku was not light or dark or neither or both, but Sora was really at a loss for what else to call it. It was above them all, like a blanket, like a shield, like any other sky, but there was no blue, nor grey, no stars, no rain, no source of light. The sky above them was a blinding white at one end and a blinded black at the other, no grey to connect in between, like the world that was divided from its pack was divided in itself. That was sad. Divided beings should stay together. They had no one else but themselves.

They could look at the sky above them together, at least, and Sora was thankful for that. Riku lay next to him, comforting warmth against Sora's arm, breathing in, and out, and in, and out, and it had been that way for the past hour or so. He didn't mind. He didn't mind the quiet of this world. He didn't mind the quiet of them together like this. They lay on the ground together, and stared up at the sky together, though neither the sky nor the ground were really that at all. The sky was not the sky in this world. The ground was not the ground.

It was as if they lay on water, but this water was not wet, and it was firm, and warm, and it was tinted purple on the white end of the world and yellow on the other. This world was so much like Riku. Nothing here was connected. It was all its own. Riku was his own. Sora wondered how he was able to be loved by someone so special and undefined. He wondered how they connected together at all.

He was never able to wonder for long, however, because Riku was so conscious of everything around him, every single thing around him, Sora or otherwise. Cool fingers wrapped around his hand, tentative little move and Riku was still looking up at the blinding sky with a gaze that spoke nothing. Sora turned his head and smiled at Riku, and he glanced over to Sora with eyes that were coloured his own teal, glanced and looked back to the white sky. Sora bit his lip so he didn't laugh.

"Hey," Sora murmured, cheeky smile on his lips. Riku took another glance at Sora, blinked and lingered, like that, with his head tilted slightly and his eyes speaking nothing, before he looked up yet again to the white sky. Sora wondered how he could stare at it with such intensity and for so long without getting blind or causing permanent damage to his eyes. It was worrisome.

"Mm?"

"You reckon we'll be resting for much longer?"

There was a pause, and Riku closed his eyes to the sky and sighed. "Probably not." Sora nodded knowingly at this, smile disappearing behind a frown and he too closed his eyes to the sky.

"I don't want to go back there," he whispered. This world was its own. This sky and this ground that weren't really that at all were all their own. Nothing was connected. Sora didn't want to stay in a world that was so unstable. He didn't want to go back to the centre of the world where everything was at its worst, where the sky spilt in two and the ground split in two all clashed together, and the beings that lived in every section wared with each other; two skies, two grounds, four different groups of the one whole when they were really all their own. It was the wost war he had seen. They all called it life.

Riku was quiet, and though Sora was a little disappointed he was not surprised, and he started to fall back into the quiet they had been in for the last hour (in a world where time didn't exist). That was okay. Quiet was okay. They hadn't gotten enough quiet for the past week or so. Everything was so harsh and brutal and in-your-face in this world, like no one here held any compassion. Like compassion was foreign, or just a fairytale told to children with no compassion so that they would think it was fake and childish, and stray from ever harbouring it. Because all children these days wanted to grow up fast, wanted to not be children, would laugh at thinking that some fairytales were really real. Human or not, they all seemed to think that now.

It was Riku who broke the silence this time, maybe ten or so minutes after they had fallen silent, but Sora wasn't even sure if time existed in this world.

"Neither do I."

It took him about seven seconds to comprehend what the heck Riku was talking about, and then it hit him full in the chest. _I don't want to go back there_, Sora had said. And Riku _didn't want to go._

Sora paused, blinked, repeated the words in his head. He was sure he had imagined it. He looked over to Riku, and Riku had his eyes closed to the white sky, could have been asleep by the way he was breathing and the silence that stretched unperturbed between them. But Sora knew better. Sora could see the worry etched into the lines on Riku's forehead and could feel the tension in his fingers, and his words and his actions made Sora really wonder how composed he was. If he was composed at all.

Sora propped himself on his elbows, tilted to gaze comfortably at Riku as he lay and closed his eyes to the sky and didn't suspect a single thing. A longing to see his teal eyes consumed him, but he gazed at pale skin and silver lashes that curled above cheeks and squeezed the hand that held his. Ignored the feeling to the extent that it hurt.

"Sometimes I wish … the keyblade never chose me," Sora murmured, half to change the subject and half to make sure that Riku was even awake. Riku didn't open his eyes, merely tilting his head to the side to converse with the head that should have been lying beside his own. But Sora wanted to see Riku's eyes. They may have spoken nothing but they didn't have to speak to tell him every single thing going through his mind.

"Mm, but you never wish that for long."

Sora smiled and leant down to kiss Riku's temple, brushed his lips against salty skin and Riku looked up in surprise. Ah, there were his eyes. "Yeah. I wouldn't have been able to find you if I didn't have the keyblade."

There was a pause as Riku blinked and considered this, considered the lips brushing his temple and the words that were spoken before he broke out into a soft, warm smile. And this soft, warm smile spread into his eyes and his cheeks and his heart and the hand that reached to tangle itself into Sora's hair. It made Sora's heart jump in his chest and his stomach convulse, made a tingle set into his spine and shiver itself down and up and under the skin that Riku touched. It made this world where four parts of the one whole feuded since the beginning of their time a little less daunting, a little less like it was about to fall apart under their feet. It made the teal eyes that fluttered shut and tilt to the side so overwhelmingly _Riku_ that Sora was sure he would die of this overwhelming feeling like some lovesick teenager (though admittedly that was exactly what he was). But he didn't, thankfully, and he pressed up to lips that were still drawn up at the corners and felt himself settle into a contented kiss with an equally contented murmur in the back of his throat.

Time didn't exist in this world, as far as Sora was conscious of. But he wasn't very conscious of time right now, admittedly, a little more concentrated on the way it tingled when he tilted his head and their lips caught together. Shiver down his spine, a warm hand resting on his hip and not pulling, yet, not desperate for that friction, yet. Fisted his hands in the warm fabric of the clothing on Riku's chest and longed for the skin underneath. Begged for the kiss to go deeper by pressing closer, felt the response in Riku's murmur into his mouth and the way his hand tightened around his hip.

There was a shift, a little fidgeting and compromising and then Riku was on top of Sora, crawling up so that his knees rested at Sora's hips and his hands were roaming _everywhere_, touching and stroking and inciting quiet moans that Sora wasn't fully aware he was making and _god_, where the heck did he learn to _touch_ like that? (Maybe it was from the few years of doing exactly this, but Sora refused to recognise that as a reason.)

That was the point where Riku decided to slide a warm, experienced hand between his legs.

The kiss broke with Sora's gasp, haul of each others breath, nuzzled his cheek into the curve where Riku's neck met his shoulder because he needed the contact. Felt the trail of Riku's lips kissing little butterfly pecks from his jaw to his neck and back again and the hand in between his legs rub slowly and _oh god, yes_. Shivered, clutched at the fabric in his fists tighter and murmured his approval louder, breathy _mmn_'s through parted lips. Felt Riku's shiver and shivered with it. It was at times like this when Sora couldn't tell whether he felt a little more excited or little more frightened.

"I love it when you do that," Riku murmured, hushed and breathy and hoarse against his neck, light trail of lips following down to his collarbone.

"Do-" Sora started only to catch his breath with a slight squeeze of Riku's experienced hand between his legs and start again. "Do what?" Sora rather thought that Riku was the one doing the things right now.

Pause, Riku leaning his head to the side and brushing his lips against the lobe of his ear. "Moan into my ear like that." Could feel the smirk on his lips as he pressed one lingering kiss onto Sora's jaw.

Sora looked at the skin of Riku's neck and didn't know how to respond to that. So he kissed Riku's neck a few times, nibbled with his lips and his teeth at one particular erogenous spot and hoped that it was sufficient enough a reply. Sora felt Riku's sigh ruffle the hair that hung near his ear, felt Riku's hand tighten around his hip and between his legs (oh _god_), and he figured it was.

After a particularly long involvement with each others tongues (though to Sora's utter dismay Riku's experienced hand had left its place to cup his cheek, at some point), they found themselves lying next to each other again, Sora's head resting on Riku's chest and Riku's fingers rubbing circles in his hair. They both stared out towards the white sky with dimming interest. It was still so plain and insufficient.

It hadn't taken them long to realize that there was no day or night in this world. The sky was always the same colour, the same brightness, an unchanging collaboration of white and white, and there was no sun or moon or stars or rain or clouds or – or _anything_, really. Sora imagined it a little like a canvas, and the artist was probably the whimsical type who created strange things that teetered on the edge of art and junk, and this artist had painted half of the canvas neon white and the other a suffocating black.

It wouldn't have been the same artist who created the ground of this world, Sora was sure. The ground was a completely different style to the sky, much like a corporation of detail that led one to believe that it was never ending. It was as if the artist had captured water and frozen it warm, mixing oils of different shades of purple into the ground on the white side of the world and different shades of yellow into the other. This artist would have been a miracle worker. Some kind of God or a master magician, someone or something who decided that, since this world was so unlucky as to be split off from all other worlds, it needed a little hope, and they had locked all the hope of this world into the ground that every single being would, at some point, walk upon. Made it impossible to reach it, or touch it, or tarnish it, but made it possible to gaze upon. Made it possible to know that it existed. Sora wondered if the beings of this world had ever thought about it that way before.

Nah, they probably didn't know what the hell hope even was.

They did, however, know what a lot of other things were. They knew what fake was, for instance, had to know otherwise they could be penetrated from the inside and taken down that way, and no official wanted to be responsible for that. They most definitely knew what pain was. They felt it every single fucking minute, whether it was physical, or emotional, or mental; didn't matter, really, it was all the same thing. They knew what suspicion was, because no one was all parts good or clean, and that meant no one was to be trusted, or taken lightly, or let off the hook. Not even the leader of your side, or your lover, or your family, or your children. That kind of trust didn't exist. They knew what victory was. It was what you strived for, what you fought for, what you breathed for (or what you ended up not breathing for), though Sora wondered what exactly victory meant to the beings of this world besides living and getting a title of high ranks or fearing the humiliation of the loss. They knew what defeat was. They all knew what defeat was. It was the polar opposite of life.

Regardless, it really hadn't taken them long to realize that there was no day or night in this world. That was both good and bad. It was good because everything stayed constant, but it was bad because there was no cover of night on the white side of the world or no light on the black side. They had learnt that the hard way. Riku had a healing wound to show for that. Sora had the guilt. They both had to face the monsters of this world, and the fact that there were monsters because of them.

That was probably the most painful lesson of all.

It wasn't too long before Sora made the yielding assumption that they should head back. Riku would be fine with a potion or two, he was sure of it, and truthfully, they were wasting time now. King Mickey wasn't going to be happy about that. But fighting such beings on such a constant level was so extremely draining, on ones physical attributes and ones sanity. The beings of this world were not ones to surrender. They never gave up. Even in death, they never gave up. Sora figured that was one way these monsters had become to exist. They were the dead who wouldn't accept death. They were the non-existence of existence. They were the mistakes behind the tragedies.

Ah, but Sora didn't want to go back there. He rather liked the peaceful way his hope lingered under the ground. That feeling disappeared when the untouched cleanliness of this secluded place was instead replaced with the blood stained battlegrounds of the Borders. He wondered how the red patterns were able to stain the ground. How did one stain frozen water turned warm? Was that possible?

Riku sighed next to him, and he shifted his shoulders against the ground before sitting up. "We should head back."

Sora blinked his eyes, wrinkled his nose in reluctance. "… Yeah."

"The same place?"

Sora paused, lingered his gaze to the sky without really wanting to look at it, and with a sigh and a lick of his lips he stood, brushing off his pants. Sora frowned and looked at Riku with something a little like worry and a little like indecision in his eyes. "Do you reckon they'd be ready when we arrive?"

Without hesitating, Riku turned on his heel and said, "Probably." Huff of air, rolled his shoulders and arched his neck to the side. "I guess we have to try a different spot and see where that takes us."

"Mm."

Sora silently handed Riku a potion, looked into the teal of his eyes and saw the unspoken need for it, and they started their walk to the edge of the White Land, even though the feeling of dread in his gut wouldn't stay behind with his hope.

* * *

He was in the dark, somewhere, and blood was dripping from the ceiling. He knew it was blood because he could smell it, could feel the memories of his own blood trickling down sweaty skin in red rivulets. It was the same smell, the same feeling. It was horrible. It was like reliving the pain he had felt over these three years, like going through every single goddamn second of every single goddamn time he had felt blood on his skin. Whether it was his blood, or Sora's blood, or someone else's, it all felt the same. It was all pain. It was all horrible. It was all so fucking real.

Bile rose to his throat, and he choked it down with forced gasps. Tried not to cry. Tried not to make any noise. Tried not to think about who or what was on the ceiling that was dripping blood onto his skin.

He was also alone. He realised that when Sora's hand wasn't next to his to grab and reassure. His emotions welled and took form in the darkness; first shock, then fear, then relief. He wasn't worried about Sora; no, in fact, he was glad that Sora wasn't here. Something bad was going to happen. Something he couldn't prevent. He could feel it in the way the air was stale and filled with the scent of battle, and how the blood that dripped onto him from the ceiling was still warm.

He did know he was still in the same world, at least, because it felt as if time didn't exist, like the dark and the dripping were both continuous things, constant and eternal and natural and there, and they did not mark time, did not exist in time, did not exist. There was never any change, besides the cooling of the blood that dripped onto his shoulder, and the bile that had settled uncomfortably at the bottom of his gut. There was no noise except for the few occasional dry coughs that broke through his lips, the dripping of what he presumed was more blood onto the ground around him, and his breath long and lingering and curling white in the air, though that was both impossible and improbable, because it wasn't cold here. Or, more correctly, he did not feel anything here. No breeze, no temperature, no nothing besides the blood that dripped onto him from the ceiling and the way it started drying and clotting into his clothes and his hair.

In this eternal time he was scared. He was never really scared, not like this, but he seemed considerably vulnerable in this darkness, like the darkness itself was alive and consuming and crushing and surrounding and eternal. Like he couldn't fight it. Like it couldn't be fought. Like it was the darkness that had mixed itself into his blood for two years, made him do things he would rather forget and never forgot because then he thought he might do them again.

He thought he had good reason to be scared when a pair of yellow eyes blinked down at him.

_Holy shit, where'd that come from?_

His first instinct was to run, but with a tug of his legs under him he realised he couldn't move them. His next instinct was to fight, but in a similar matter he realised that he couldn't move his hands. He was helpless.

_Fuck._

"Don't try," was hissed through the air. Riku's heart skipped a beat when he realised the monster in front him could _talk_. Like a human being, it could _talk_.

The monster smiled; he could see its teeth glistening like they could reflect light that didn't exist, and Riku could suddenly feel. He could feel _everything_. It was fucking _freezing_, so much so that he couldn't feel his fingers or his toes, and when he tried to talk, his teeth chattered so much that they constantly bit into his tongue and he had to keep swallowing blood so that it didn't roll down the corners of his mouth. And he could feel the breath of the monster in front of him cold and biting and different to the cold, like it was seeping into his skin rather than freezing it, seeping into his pores like a virus of fog and freezing his insides, his blood, his organs, his heart, his hope.

"_Leave_," the monster hissed.

With a grimace Riku swallowed the rest of the blood in his mouth, ignored the blood that continued to drip onto him from the ceiling (which was now as cold as the air around him) and shouted, "But I _can't!_"

"We don't want you here," the monster continued, and it moved closer, its countenance suddenly forming in the darkness of this place, and it looked as if it were _glaring_ at him. "We don't want your help. We don't want you here. So _leave_."

Anger flared in his chest, flared and burned the cold virus of fog inside him, and he spat blood at the ground between him and the monster and barked, "I can't leave because you won't let me!" Clenched his teeth before he could bite his tongue.

The monster grinned wickedly, stretch of glowing white teeth against its face, yellow eyes scrunching. "No," it whispered, licking its lips with a pause. "You won't let _yourself._"

Riku had no idea what that meant. He didn't know what the _fuck_ this monster was talking about, because what he really wanted right now was to get the hell out of this darkness and find Sora. He wasn't keeping himself here. He had no goddamn reason to want to be here. He had no reason to want to feel the blood from the ceiling drip onto his shoulder. He had no reason to trap himself in this darkness that reminded him so much of a time he'd rather forget but would never forget because he was afraid he'd make the same mistakes.

Riku frowned in confusion, frowned because this made no sense, frowned because he thought this monster was getting somewhere with this. Frowned because the anger that burned the virus of fog that had seeped through his skin wasn't dimming in the slightest, and what he really wanted was to get out of this darkness and find Sora. He had to find Sora. He had to.

"You won't let yourself," the monster repeated, moving closer, breathing into Riku's face. It smelt like blood. Everything here smelt like blood. "Do you want to know _why?_"

"Please, enlighten me," Riku snarled.

God dammit, he'd been through all this before. They'd try to confuse him, then try to get into his head, then weaken him by hitting him with what really hurt, what really mattered, and then, when he gave up, surrendered himself to them either in resignation or while sobbing against the floor, they'd enjoy themselves while ripping his flesh to pieces. They were all the same. That was always the plan. It disgusted Riku to know that this monster was _doing exactly that_, and he was _falling_ for it. God dammit, he was _falling for it_.

There was another pause as the monster moved, walked around to his side and whispered in his ear with something quieter than a huff of breath, and it snaked into his head and echoed and made him tremble. "You don't want to leave … because _you don't want to leave Sora_."

Sora?

He didn't understand.

_Sora? _

No, this monster was just fucking with him. Sora wasn't here. It was just trying to get into his head. That was it. That was all. Sora wasn't here. Sora was somewhere else and he wanted to go find him. Sora was somewhere else and he felt that Sora being somewhere else wasn't safe at all, was terribly wrong and he had to go find him. He knew that. He had to find Sora.

_Sora?_

Another pause as the monster chuckled, dark and sinister and tingling and hissing against his ear, and then, "Look up, Riku."

First, though it was utterly stupid, Riku thought the monster was joking. But the silence and stillness and cold that followed indicated that it wasn't, that it was waiting and anticipating and expecting and holding its breath. Then, Riku thought that it was a trap. Like if he looked up he'd be blinded by a sudden light and then the monster would go at him, or maybe if he looked up he'd be sprayed with some type of gas that would have killed him instantly, or maybe looking up would be just the distraction the monster wanted, distract him with a bit of blood and gore, and it'd bite Riku's head off while he wasn't looking. Though, Riku didn't understand why the monster would need a distraction in the first place, considering that he wasn't in any position to fight or protect himself, because he knew and the monster knew and they both knew that Riku was smothered and controlled by this darkness, and his own body, unmoving, defying, trapping, was working against him, and he was too scared and too cold to figure out why that was. So he figured that the monster didn't have any motive besides actually wanting him to look up.

So Riku looked up.

He jumped and then he screamed and _fuck_, and then the bile that had settled uncomfortably at the pit of his stomach rose and filled his mouth, but he swallowed it down, for now, and _fuck_. Just for now. It just had to wait. Everything had to wait. His heart stopped and it waited, and then thud loudly in his ears, and _fuck_.

_Sora._

Sora was nailed to the ceiling, staring down at him with glazed eyes and a slack jaw and blue lips. He was dripping blood everywhere, fucking _everywhere_, but it came out freely from his chest, ripped to the point of undefinable, shredded flesh, dangling precariously from muscles and bones and heart. His _heart_. Holy fucking God, his _heart_.

_SORA._

And the peaceful way Sora looked nailed to the ceiling, his fists frozen mid-clench at his sides, his hair tangled and covering the blood spattered on his cheeks, the way his eyes said _you're too late to help me_ made him sob into the darkness. He tasted tears and Sora's blood and his own blood in his mouth.

_SORA, NO._

_NOT YOU._

Riku looked away because he couldn't take that anymore, and he sobbed uncontrollably and shrieked his pain out, and it echoed back at him, wave after wave of mirrored agony. This wasn't happening. This _couldn't be happening_. Sora _wouldn't have let this happen_. He knew better. God _dammit_, he knew better than to die. And Riku's face contorted until it felt painful, and the tearing and reverberation of _PAIN_ through his veins choked him and killed him and made him feel more alive than he had ever felt, made him feel too much and not enough because _SORA WAS DEAD, AND IT WAS ALL HIS FUCKING FAULT._

The monster blinked slowly, cocked its head to the side, whispered "He's not here anymore." Pause for effect, and if Riku had been paying attention he would have realised that the monster was licking the sharp edges of its teeth. "Do you want to leave?"

Riku nodded his head so fast it made him dizzy, said a prayer to God that he'd see Sora in heaven, added in at the end that dying wouldn't hurt too much, because he was in enough pain as it was, and _Sora was fucking gone_, and he didn't want to live if Sora wasn't here.

With a murmur of approval the monster dug into his chest.

That night-morning, under the white sky, Riku woke up screaming, and Sora held him like a child and told him he was still alive and that he loved him and that it was all a dream, but the word _leave_ rung through his head as real as Sora's arms around him, and he had to wonder about how real that _leave_ was.

It felt pretty fucking real to him.

* * *

Sora missed the night time. He missed the way the stars were different shapes and sizes and glowed different shapes and sizes and faded into different shapes and sizes, how the moon looked no bigger than his thumb nail but still prevailed over every other thing in the sky. How he used to spend his nights staring up at and studying these stars with Riku, laying on his rooftop even though his mum told them not to, watching and chatting or laying in silence until it was too early to be called late and they had to sleep in until midday. He missed how the night air smelt different to the day air. He missed the sun on his skin. He missed the rain.

He missed the cover the night gave you just before you went to battle.

Truthfully, Sora thought he had taken the night quite for granted. It was never supposed to just … _not exist_. Night was something you could always count on. Night was always there, just like the sky was always there, or the light was always there, or the darkness was always there. It was predictable and promised every single day, it was quieter and darker and peaceful and sombre, and fights were always easier when you had the upper hand.

The night was not here, and they did not have the upper hand.

In fact, if Sora were to look at it logically (which he was trying so very hard not to do), they had the lower hand. Stuff level ground - that was long gone now - it felt as if they were dangling from the edge of a cliff and the White Land Beings were tickling their fingers and chanting mocking mantras through the laughter of their comrades and waiting, just _waiting_ for them to let go of the cliff edge and fall to their deaths into an abyss of eternal darkness.

This was ridiculous. It was crazy. They were out of their freaking _minds_. But it was the only thing they could do. And maybe Sora could throw out a few duo-moves with Riku, if it came to that. They hadn't practised them for a while, but he was sure that they could pull them off without killing each other. Kind of.

Or maybe they could try and go around the group of White Land Beings. Their camp couldn't stretch on _that_ far, and Sora was sure that if he and Riku were to take a few less breaks they could get back on track in time (which was funny, since time _didn't even exist here_).

Why were they rushing if time didn't exist in this world? Didn't that mean they could take all the time they wanted? Was it possible to take the time you wanted if time didn't even exist? And how did time work in other worlds if it didn't work here? Did it mean that, when Sora and Riku went back to another world, it would be like they had never left?

"Urrrrgh," Sora groaned, massaging his temples with his hand. Riku made a similar noise and massaged his temples in a similar manner and they both fell onto their bottoms at the same time with a huff of strangled air.

"This is giving me a headache," Riku hissed, holding his head in his hands.

"I second that," Sora grumbled in rather the same tone.

"This is hopeless."

"I second that, too."

"Don't you have anything constructive to say?" Riku asked, glaring at him through his fingers.

"Sorry, my brain's fried. If you want something constructive you're going to have to ask me in an hour."

"We don't _have _an hour," he muttered, and hidden in that retaliation Sora could sense Riku saying _hours don't exist here, anyway._

Sora sighed, letting his head fall into his lap and his arms curl around his knees. "Yeah, I know." Replying to both the spoken comment and the comment hidden in its words.

They stayed like that for what Sora guessed was a couple of minutes, if they were to be taking time in a place where time didn't exist. He continued to think about how time would and wouldn't work, strain his mind into understanding things he'd never understand, but what they had to think about was how to get past these White Land Beings without starting a fight they didn't need. And God only knew they didn't need anymore fights; Riku's wound still wasn't fully healed, even with the potion, and Sora wasn't in perfect shape himself. Their supplies were diminishing rapidly; they had enough rations for what Sora guessed to be seven days (in a world where time didn't exist, which meant they had enough rations for approximately fourteen meals, according to their body clocks). They hadn't slept properly, either, the last few times they were able to squeeze sleep in. Riku had had a god awful nightmare and refused to sleep afterward, rather watching Sora with a gaze that never drifted away and screamed _I don't want you to ever die_, and Sora wasn't able to force him to go to sleep and was too shaken up by Riku's dream (and the way Riku was staring at him) to relax, so they had started walking earlier than expected.

Exhausted, hungry, tense – this wasn't the way to start off a fight. Sora hated to admit it, but that's what it was coming to. Nothing was on their side. They didn't even _have_ a side, as far as he was concerned. It was just the White Land Beings and their victory with the forty-or-so armed comrades they had. It was just the White Land Beings and the fact that they didn't sleep.

Sora and Riku had learnt that the White Land Beings didn't sleep not long after arriving in this world, a little like how they had realised that there was no day or night or that time didn't exist. They had trekked from one end of the White Land to the other end, but upon arriving not even three quarters of the way there they had been ambushed by a group of twenty foot soldiers while asleep. They had won the fight, but not without injury, and as they rested and healed they took turns to look out as the other slept, not used to the silent company because that precaution had never been needed before. They never expected the beings they were supposed to be helping to be attacking them.

They had followed the group of a newly diminished twelve foot soldiers for what their body clocks registered as four days, with the idea that once they fell asleep they'd get Sora to strike them with a few spells to even the odds out – three to a person sounded pretty fair as far as odds went – before ambushing them, but once Sora had woken up from his forth sleeping period and realised that they had, yet again, not fallen asleep, they had given up on that idea with a sinking feeling in their stomachs, because that was probably the biggest and most dangerous disadvantage they had. Not having to sleep was like not having to eat; that was one form of energy that they would always have at full capacity and they would never fully have. It was like not having to breathe; a form of their life that prevented them from ever being exhausted to death, or exhausted enough to talk, or exhausted enough to be weakened. It was like fighting with a hand tied behind your back and your shoes off; the disadvantages that came with the enemy not needing sleep were that varied and far in between. It was like going to fight when you knew that you'd lose. Suicide mission without the formal analogy.

Sora's head shot up as a new idea formed as he spoke. "Maybe we could ask King Mickey –"

"No," Riku cut in, and it was like a knife through his hope that lingered in that peaceful spot where they had been lying down together. "King Mickey could only get here by Gummi Ship, and since this sky isn't actually part of the sky, there's no possible pathway he could take."

"He could always try to open the Door to Light," Sora mumbled, frowning at his trousers with a little too much passion to not be thinking that they were to blame. There was a pause as Riku looked over to him, slightly bemused. Lingered his gaze, and then he shuffled away from the stone pillar he was hiding behind and closer to him, sat himself down in front of Sora with a huff and, surprisingly but not unwelcomingly, he smiled.

"You're the only one who can open the Door to Light, Sora," he said, rolling his eyes like it should have been the most obvious thing in the world. "With _this_." And he poked one long finger into Sora's chest.

Sora turned his gaze away, sheepish. "Kinda like déjà vu, huh?"

"You're the one who keeps needing to be reminded," Riku chuckled, punched his fist into Sora's shoulder. Sora pouted.

"Do not."

"Do too."

"Oh _whatever_, man," Sora groaned, dropped his head onto Riku's shoulder with a comical _thump_. Stayed like that for a few seconds before mumbling, "Maybe we should just get it over and done with and attack them."

"Probably," Riku sighed, wrapped his arms around Sora's shoulders and rested his cheek on the top of his head. Breathed the scent of shampoo and dirt and hair. Smiled like some lovesick teenager (though admittedly that was exactly what he was). Felt the adrenalin for the fight start to pump its way through his veins. "You think you're up for a few spells, just to help us out?"

"I could try," Sora frowned, shifted to look at Riku's neck. "But I can't promise anything big right now." And under that Sora was saying, _I'm too tired_.

"Sorry," Riku whispered. Sora shook his head. He could sense the tone under Riku's breath, like a build up of all the feelings that dream had given Riku, like he was remembering everything and reliving it right then, even while he was hugging Sora and Sora was breathing into his neck and they were getting ready to fight. Even then, and Sora could even hear the word that Riku was thinking, just that one word, ringing and repeating and going like a mantra through his head. _Leave_. They didn't know what that meant. _Leave_. It was such a common word but they had no idea what the hell it meant, and Sora wasn't even sure it was _supposed_ to mean anything. But Riku did, Riku was so sure that he had even stared at Sora for a straight hour (in a world where time didn't exist) before Sora gave up on sleep himself. And if Riku thought it was that real, and if Riku thought it meant something, Sora was going to believe that too.

"We should do this now if we're really gonna do it," Sora sighed, thumping his forehead onto Riku's shoulder, fidgety because the adrenalin that ran through his veins wasn't getting used.

"Guh."

With that they both stood, side by side, behind Sora's stone pillar and behind the group of White Land Beings, and for a second, out of the blue, Sora reckoned the White Land Beings looked like a wolf pack, and he and Riku were the little wolf pack of two trying to get by. These odds were not good at all.

"On the count of three," Riku whispered, summoning out his keyblade, and Sora followed his lead with a rolling of his shoulders and a shuffling of his feet.

"One …"

Huff of air through Sora's nose, then, "I suppose I'll be able to use a couple spells first, so don't attack until after I'm done."

"Two …" Riku nodded his head in response and summoned his keyblade, shinning in the ethereal light around them.

Sora hated the last second before a fight. He hated it because it was always longer than a second. It was always dragged out to something like three seconds, which meant that they were really attacking on the count of six, which was really confusing. Especially since time didn't exist in this world, or this world didn't exist in time.

Sora shuffled on his feet, glared at the group of forty White Land Being foot soldiers who may or may not have looked like a wolf pack, and Sora waited for the delayed three that would come out of Riku's lips at the count of six and prayed to God that his wolf pack of two would be okay.


End file.
